A bit of advice to writers, indie or professional: every word you type is your resume. EVERY word.

Being employed full time to a paying, if maddening sometimes, job, I can totally understand not wanting to think about work when I’m not working. My job is my job and I’m only paid for 8 hours 5 times a week worth of effort to think or perform tasks for it.

Writing articles or novels or whatever can be work, yes, but it is also communication. No matter when you are communicating, how you are communicating, you should put effort into communicating clearly and properly. That means good grammar, good spelling, good punctuation, and good diction. No text speech, no lazy “I can’t be bothered” lack of effort.

How you communicate says a lot about you. More than you can imagine, for more things than you realize. Sure, you might find that person who doesn’t care how lazy your communication style is, but odds are, they are going to use it to assess you. You would not send a resume without proper grammar, format, and such not. You would not send a manuscript to a publisher to review without having proofed and edited it to correct typos and fix grammar and punctuation.

So, when you post to a Facebook writer’s group (where I tend to live when online,) and your post makes my inner grammar Nazi wake up and grab the bayonet pen, this is not enticing me to take time away from my day (of which we all only have a total of 8,760 hours per year, 8,784 during leap years) to read your stuff. When you choose an art based on communication — whether oral, textual, or visual — then every word you utter, every letter you type, every visual part of your life is your resume to the world. Express accordingly for success.

3 Responses to You’re a writer? Really? Uhm…

Hee. I grew up in the age before texting and all the “shorthand” that has since developed. When I noticed how I looked at other people’s texts and posts and realized it was making me twitch, I imagined how prospective employers, publishers or even just other people like me and thought… people really don’t seem to realize the impression they’re making.